Qantas jumbo jet in near-disaster

Royzee617 · 01-09-2008, 04:41 AM

Qantas jumbo jet in near-disaster
Qantas jumbo jet in near-disaster | The Australian

Steve Creedy and Michael West | January 09, 2008

QANTAS faced a potential disaster on Monday when a jumbo jet en route from London lost all main electrical power and was forced to land on battery back-up.

plan_D · 01-09-2008, 04:54 AM

That's something quite severe if all the engine driven generators and APU generators have gone down. I have to note though that the battery isn't the final resort, the Ram Air Turbine (RAT) is the last resort and since that wasn't used it didn't come close to a disaster - albeit it was a serious fault.

Ram air turbine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Royzee617 · 01-09-2008, 05:52 AM

Yeah, a good story hyped up!

plan_D · 01-09-2008, 06:03 AM

We wouldn't expect anything less from the media. Reading the story again it's obvious that the incident was nothing close to a near disaster, the aircraft was fifteen minutes away from the airport - as the story itself says the battery can power the vital units for one hour. And I'm pretty sure that the APU could keep the battery charged if the aircraft can't use the APUs generators. Even more so, I reckon that when the aircraft came close to land the pilot turned the APU off to save fuel and used the battery instead of restarting the APU !

pbfoot · 01-09-2008, 12:40 PM

It's an emergency the SOP would be for the pilot to declare an emergency for that set of circumstances and the ATC act on all the info which is probably broadcast on the FM freq to responding emerg vehicles so anyone with a scanner would hear the word Emergency and hence you have a story . You always plan for the worst case scenario

Royzee617 · 01-10-2008, 03:51 AM

it continues....

QANTAS has revealed that water was responsible for a rare incident that robbed a flight from London to Bangkok of its main electrical power and forced it to land on Monday using a battery back-up.

Qantas executive general manager John Borghetti said the water entered a generator control unit, causing a loss of power and prompting the aircraft to automatically revert to standby power.

The aircraft is back in operation and landed at Sydney today.

"The aircraft was subjected to stringent inspections and testing in Bangkok before being cleared to fly,” he said.

"As is normal practice, we are conducting our own investigation as well as working with Boeing, the ATSB (Australian Transport Safety Bureau) and CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority) on their investigations. A more detailed report on the incident will be released by the ATSB in due course.

“As a precaution, Qantas has inspected its entire Boeing 747-400 fleet and all of these aircraft have been cleared to fly.”

Were you on the flight? Email us at online@theaustralian.com.au

The Boeing 747-400 was operating Flight QF2 and was about 15 minutes out of Bangkok when the highly unusual failure took place and a battery back-up system kicked in.

The battery back-up is designed to provide at least 30 minutes of power but aviation sources said the failure could potentially have been disastrous had it happened over the ocean at night.

The aircraft landed safely and passengers were accommodated overnight and transferred to other flights while it was repaired and checked.

plan_D · 01-10-2008, 06:13 AM

Potentially dangerous, yes - but it wasn't. We don't know the circumstances but I don't see it as a near disaster when there's no mention of the APU or RAT. That close to landing the APU was probably off - and they're able to be started in-flight, up to 45,000 feet ... the aircraft was safe.

FLYBOYJ · 01-10-2008, 08:30 AM

Right on D - they're teaching you well! No mention of the APU which could of easily been fired up in flight. I think the media (as usual) made more of this than it actually was!

plan_D · 01-10-2008, 08:34 AM

There's little bits of knowledge being fed into my brain here and there.

Matt308 · 01-10-2008, 01:53 PM

Standby power does NOT equal battery power. The electrical system on the 47-400 allows for load shedding under fault conditions. A single GCU will not result in BATT power alone. Standby MAIN and BATT buses are powered by both AC and inverters respectively.

FLYBOYJ · 01-17-2008, 09:52 AM

From the NTSB...

"On January 7, 2008, a Quantas Boeing 747-400,OJM, was reported to have lost all four generator control units (GCUs) about a half hour out from Bangkok, Thailand. The airplane was landing by using standby power and instruments. There were 334 passengers on board and no injuries were reported. It has been reported that there was standing water in the galley above the GCUs and that the drip tray that would have prevented water intrusion was cracked. GCUs have been pulled and will be examined at the US manufacturer. "